Then he rapped his gavel and closed the session.
When Judge Dee was sitting again in his private office, he smiled bleakly and said to Tao Gan, who was sitting opposite him together with Sergeant Hoong and Chiao Tai:
"You did your job very well, Tap Gan! The case Liu versus Djang is now solved, save for the problem of the vanished corpse!"
"Mao Loo shall tell us all about that, Your Honor!" the sergeant said. "Evidently Mao Loo killed his cousin for his money. When we have arrested him, he'll tell us what he did with the corpse of Mrs. Djang!"
Judge Dee didn't seem to agree. He said slowly:
"Why would Mao Loo have removed the corpse? I could imagine that Mao Loo, after he had murdered his cousin somewhere near the temple, went to look inside for a place to hide the corpse, and then found the coffin in the side hall. To open it was easy; he had his cousin's toolbox. But why didn't he then simply put the carpenter's body inside on top of that of the woman? Why remove her body-which left him with exactly the same problem as before, namely how to dispose of a dead body?"
Tao Gan, who had been listening silently, playing with the three long hairs sprouting from his cheek, now suddenly said:
"Perhaps a third person, as yet unknown to us, had removed the bride's body before Mao Loo found the coffin. That must have been a person who for some reason or other wanted to prevent at all cost that the corpse would be examined. The dead woman can't very well have walked off by herself!"
Judge Dee shot him a sharp look. He folded his arms in his sleeves and, huddled in his armchair, remained deep in thought for some time.
Suddenly he straightened himself. He hit his fist on the table and exclaimed:
"That's exactly what she did, Tao Gan! For that woman wasn't dead!"
His lieutenants looked at him in utter astonishment.
"How could that be, Your Honor?" Sergeant Hoong asked. "A professional physician pronounced her dead; an experienced undertaker washed her body. Then she was lying in a closed coffin for more than half a day!"
"No!" the judge said excitedly. "Listen to me! Don't you remember the coroner's saying that in such cases the girl would often faint, but that death was rare! Well, suppose she fainted and that the nervous shock caused her to fall into a condition of suspended animation! Our medical books record cases of persons who were in that state. There is complete cessation of breathing, no pulse of the wrist, the eyes lose their luster and sometimes the face will even show cadaveric characteristics. This state has been known to last for several hours.
"Now we know that she was encoffined in a great hurry, then carried at once to the Buddhist Temple. Fortunately, the coffin was only a temporary one of thin boards; I myself noticed the crevices. Else she would have died from suffocation. Then, when the coffin had been placed in the temple, and everybody gone, she must have regained consciousness. She'll have shouted and beaten against the walls of her wooden prison, but she was in a side hall of a deserted temple, and the caretaker was deaf!
"The following is just a theory. Mao Loo kills his cousin and steals his money. He searches the temple for a place to hide the body, and hears the sounds from the coffin!"
"That must have given him a bad fright!" Tao Gan remarked. "Wouldn't he have run away as fast as he could?"
"We must assume he didn't," Judge Dee said. "He took his cousin's tools, and opened the coffin. The woman must have told him what had happened and-" His voice trailed off. He frowned, then resumed with annoyance: "No, there we are up against a snag! Wouldn't Mao Loo, upon hearing her story, have realized at once that Dr. Djang would give him a generous reward for having saved his daughter? Why didn't he bring her back immediately?"
"I think she saw the carpenter's corpse, Your Honor," Tao Gan said. "That made her a witness to Mao Loo's crime, and he was afraid she would denounce him."
Judge Dee nodded eagerly.
"That must be it!" he said. "Mao must have decided to take her with him to some distant place, and keep her there till he would have heard that the coffin had been buried. Then he could let her make her own choice: either be sold as a prostitute, or be taken back home, on condition that she promised to tell Dr. Djang some trumped-up story about Mao Loo's saving her. In that manner Mao Loo would in either case earn a couple of gold bars!"
"But where was Mrs. Djang when Mao Loo buried the toolbox!" Hoong asked. "You may be sure that the monk searched the temple thoroughly, and he didn't discover her."
"We'll learn all that when we have caught Mao Loo," the judge said. "But we know already where Mao Loo concealed that unfortunate woman these last days, namely in the brothel behind the fish market! 'Mao Loo's wench,' as the one-eyed man referred to her, is nobody else but Mrs. Djang!"
A clerk came in carrying a tray with Judge Dee's noon meal. While he was placing the bowls on the table, the judge resumed:
"We can easily verify our theory about Mrs. Djang. You three can have your noon meal now too; then Chiao Tai goes to the brothel and brings the owner here. He'll give us a description of the woman Mao Loo brought there."
He took up his chopsticks, and his three lieutenants left.
Judge Dee ate without really tasting his food. He was trying to digest the new facts that had come to light. There could hardly be any doubt that the case Liu versus Djang was now solved; only some details remained to be filled in. The real problem was to find the link between this case and the murder of the courtesan. One could now safely assume that the professor was innocent, but the whole affair threw a curious light on Liu Fei-po.
When the clerk had cleared the table and poured out a cup of tea, the judge took the documents relating to the murder on the flower boat from the drawer, and started rereading them, slowly caressing his side whiskers.
Thus his four lieutenants found him when they entered the private office. Ma Joong said:
"Well, I now have seen the professor show some real emotion! Wasn't he glad to see his son!"
"The others will have told you already," Judge Dee said to him, "that we have strong reasons to assume that Candidate Djang's bride is alive too. Did you bring the brothel owner here, Chiao Tai?"
"He did!" Ma Joong replied for him. "I saw that beauty waiting in the corridor outside!"
"Bring her in!" Judge Dee ordered.
Chiao Tai came back with a tall, rawboned woman with a coarse, flat face. She bowed deeply, then at once began in a whining voice:
"He didn't even give me time for changing my robe, Your Excellency! How can I appear before Your Excellency in this terrible attire! I said to him-"
"Be quiet and listen to your magistrate!" the judge cut her short. "You know I can close your establishment any time I choose, so you'd better be careful and tell the complete truth. Who was the woman brought to your place by Mao Loo?"
The woman fell on her knees.
"I knew the rascal would land me into trouble!" she wailed. "But what can a weak woman do, Your Excellency! He would have cut my throat, Excellency! Forgive me, Excellency!"
Crying loudly, she knocked her forehead on the floor. "Stop all that noise!" Judge Dee commanded angrily. "Speak up; who was that woman!"
"How could I know the wench!" the woman cried out. "Mao Loo brings her to my house in the middle o£ the night; I swear I had never seen her before! She wears a queer, single robe, and looks rather frightened. Brother Mao says: 'The chicken doesn't know what's good for her. Can you imagine her refusing a fine husband like me? But I'll teach her a lesson!' I see the poor girl is really ill, so I tell Mao Loo to leave her alone for the night. That's how I am, Excellency. I always believe in treating them kindly. I put her in a nice room; I give her some good rice gruel and a pot of tea. I remember exactly what I said to her, Excellency. 'Go to sleep, my chicken,' I say, 'and don't worry! Tomorrow you'll see that everything is all right!'" The woman heaved a deep sigh.